The Slow Roll of Connected Fashion

Where are all the wearable tech fashions?  Digital technology has remade how people work, communicate, live, love and more. It’s on the desktop, in the car and has utterly taken over the phone. Apple, Fitbit and others have brought tech to the wrist and wireless earbuds have become omni present. But what happened to all those logged-on shirts and connected jackets? Yes, there are some, but they’re few and far between.  In a smart world, fashion still looks pretty dumb.  While there are good reasons for that — a lot of the tech still isn’t ready for the washing machine — there is no shortage of companies and entrepreneurs racing to get in on the still-small, but quickly growing and many say promising, category.  According to a recent report in Research and Markets, the smart apparel market is worth some $1.6 billion now, and it’s expected to grow 26.2 percent annually to $5.3 billion by 2024, thanks in large part to sports and fitness. The growth rate would be even higher were it not for barriers like pricy components.  That’s just a slice of the overall wearable-tech sector, a growing field that includes smartwatches, smart earbuds, glasses and jewelry, as well as sensor-equipped clothes and shoes, among

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